Are Your Outdoor Faucets Ready for Winter?

During the winter, harsh weather and freezing temperatures can wreak havoc on your plumbing and hoses. To avoid burst pipes, structural damage, and even winter flooding in your home, you know to prepare your indoor plumbing system for the winter. But your outdoor faucets and hoses require winterizing as well. Avoid costly plumbing repairs this winter by making sure your outdoor faucets are ready for winter. Here are a few things to look for when winterizing your outdoor faucets.

Remove Connections

While you may leave your hoses and other connections attached to your outdoor faucets for most of the year, it is very important to disconnect these for the winter. Hoses can retain water, which will freeze when the temperatures drop and cause pipes to break. You may be tempted to leave your hoses connected up until the point of freezing in order to use them for gardening or other household chores, it is best to disconnect them from your outdoor faucets to prepare for winter.

Inspect Your Fixtures

The importance of a plumbing inspection when winterizing your home cannot be understated. One of the best ways to avoid leaks, floods, and water damage is to call a professional to check your plumbing or even conduct a video inspection. You can even check your own pipes and fixtures to ensure that your outdoor faucets are not leaking, helping you to avoid plumbing troubles all winter long.

Drain the System

So long as water is retained in your system, it will freeze when the temperature drops low enough. It is incredibly important to drain pipes of water in your outdoor faucets, as well as your irrigation system or sprinklers. Outdoor pipes and hoses should be totally empty in order to prevent freezing and breakage during the winter. Attachments should also be removed to ensure that the systems have been drained properly.

Insulate

Lastly, you should insulate your outdoor faucets to make sure that no components freeze. Luckily, it is easy to find frost free hose bibs that protect your outdoor faucets using foam to keep the cold from the valve. You can find these at most hardware stores in order to make sure your outdoor faucets are ready for winter.

A RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL PLUMBING COMPANY YOU CAN TRUST

Alpha Plumbing is a full-service plumbing and contracting company serving the Baltimore and Annapolis metro area with expertise in all aspects of plumbing. We’re family-owned and operated since 1991 from our office in Pasadena. We offer quality plumbing services at reasonable rates in a timely fashion. Our trucks are equipped with GPS systems to ensure we’re prompt and on time. No job is too large or too small! We maintain a fleet of well-stocked trucks and also own and operate our own backhoes for jobs requiring excavation.

For more information and to get a free no-obligation estimate, you can contact us on our website, send us an e-mail, or give us a call at (410) 255-5998.